


We Both Matter, Don't We?

by indevan



Series: Running Up That Hill [3]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Cats, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 01:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13671546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Goten didn’t think it was too hard to adjust to a normal life again--a semblance of normal.  As normal as he could ever be anyway





	We Both Matter, Don't We?

**Author's Note:**

> this fic follows [There is Thunder in Our Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13538667) because i keep thinking about the au trio

Goten didn’t think it was too hard to adjust to a normal life again--a semblance of normal.  As normal as he could ever be anyway.  The nightmares persisted but he knew that going into it.  Trunks said as much anyway.

Trunks.

The best part of this new universe.  His...boyfriend?  Maybe.  They didn’t really bother putting a label on it but they were together.  He got to sleep with him and kiss him and make love to him and it made him feel whole for the first time since...well, the first time in a long time.

The apartment was nice, too.  Small, with the three of them, but they made it work.  They got a pull-out bed for Mai because she said she didn’t want to intrude on their “love fest.”  Goten liked her, too.  She was resourceful and spunky and funny when she let herself be.  It was clear that both she and Trunks both had no clue how to live in a world that wasn’t an apocalyptic nightmare.  He, at least, had had that normal life until everything happened.  Everything he tried to push back and forget.  Get over.

Overall, he liked his new life.  It was hard to let go of the past--especially when it plagued him at every turn--but he was adjusting.  He could be happy here.

These thoughts kept with him as he padded into the kitchen one morning, intent on making breakfast.  Trunks and Mai were miserable in the kitchen.  Goten was slowly teaching them how to properly cook but it was a slow going.

He found his boyfriend hunched over the formica square they called a kitchen table, his face nearly in his steaming cup of coffee.

“It’s me,” he said before running his hand along his back.

Trunks glanced up and smiled at him in that tired way of his.  He really needed to find a way to help him get some sleep.

“Hey,” he said back. “I didn’t want to wake you when I got up to get some coffee.”

“It’s all good.” Goten leaned in for a kiss.

On some level, he this should have been weird.  He had never been with the Trunks in his universe, though, and this Trunks wasn’t him.  They were two different people shaped by different events.  That was why the closeness that still permeated his relationship with his Trunks bled into this one and he had made the mistake of getting close and coming up to touch him without letting him know he was there.  The one time he had made the mistake, the look on Trunks’s face made him certain that he would never do it again.

Trunks kissed him back and held the coffee cup up. “I made a pot.”

He smiled, pleased with himself.  Before, he had admitted that his experience with coffee were instant crystals swirled with lukewarm water.  Unlike the stove, though, Trunks was able to work a coffeemaker just fine.

“Wow--you should do that for a living.”

Trunks made a bit of a face at that.  There weren’t a lot of jobs available for someone whose only experience was being a freedom fighter against great evil but he had managed to get a job at a nearby coffee shop.

“Do you want any or not?”

“I’m good.” Goten pulled back. “What do you want for breakfast?”

Trunks shrugged.  His appetite was different from his Trunks’s as well.  They had been able to keep pace with one another in his universe but it seemed that this Trunks had had to forcibly curb it in order to deal with the scarcity of food.

“Whatever.  Everything you make is good.”

“Flatterer.”

Trunks smiled again. “I try.”

He righted himself and went to the fridge to examine its contents.  They had had eggs yesterday and he didn’t feel up to making pancakes.

“Where’s Mai?  Maybe she can decide what we’re having.”

Trunks took a sip of his coffee and shrugged.

“Probably still chasing the cat.”

Goten turned from the fridge and cocked a brow.  The cold emanating from the appliance hit his back and he instinctively pulled Gohan’s cardigan around him more tightly.

“Chasing what now?”

He wasn’t sure if the slang in Trunks’s universe deviated from his and if he was making some kind of euphemism or not.

“The cat,” he repeated. “We saw that there’s a stray that hangs around the building and it made us miss the cat we had in our universe so she’s been trying to ply it into our apartment with tuna.”

“Oh.”

As if summoned by her name, the door opened and Mai, still dressed in her pajamas albeit with her coat (that purportedly belonged to one of her mothers) over them.  In one hand, she held a partially opened can of tuna.

“No luck,” she reported.

Mai made her way into the kitchen and put the tuna on the table.

“We should probably eat this soon.”

Goten couldn’t help but laugh as he scooped the can off of the table.

“Guess we’ll have a tuna and eggs scramble this morning.”

Trunks seemed to perk up. “With avocado?  And tomatoes?”

He grinned. “Sure thing.”

Their new jobs made it easier for them to actually stock their kitchen with at least a decent amount of food.  Goten worked nights as a bartender in a club downtown and Mai had gotten hired at the same coffee shop as Trunks.

He grabbed an avocado and a tomato from the produce drawer and plunked them on the counter.  He put a frying pan on the stove and brought down the carton of eggs.  The entire thing felt domestic and reminded him of home.  Of his parents.  Gohan.  Goten felt his hand flex around the knife he had grabbed to dice the tomatoes.  Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his grip.

“We have to find that cat,” Mai said.

Upon hearing that, he decided that the best course of action was to listen to their conversation while he made breakfast.

“What if we get fancy cat food?” Trunks asked. “Maybe it wants that more than tuna.”

“Or salmon.  We can get salmon.”

Goten shoved the knife into the avocado to get out the pit and glanced over his shoulder.

“Why don’t you just go to the shelter and adopt a cat?”

Mai cocked her head to the side in confusion. “Go to the what?”

He cracked two eggs into the pan and moved them around with his spatula.

“The animal shelter,” he clarified.

“That’s a thing?” Trunks asked.

Oh--they.  They didn’t know what that was.  Fair enough.  There was probably never enough peace in their world for them to even go to one.

“Yeah,” he said. “We can go this afternoon to look at the cats.  Maybe stop by the store for a litterbox and stuff on the way back in case we go back to get one or something.”

Goten very much liked the idea of having a pet.  Before, he would try to befriend every dog, cat, bird, lizard, and dinosaur he found on the mountain.

He added the tuna and tomatoes to the egg concoction and mixed them together.

“Wait, so these people just let us look at cats and take one home?” Mai asked.

“I mean, there’s an adoption fee, but yeah.”

The two of them looked absolutely gobsmacked and Goten had to turn around so they didn’t see him laughing.

\--

They were the only people at the shelter other than the volunteers, which made sense.  It was still fairly early in the morning.  If anyone had a hankering to adopt a cat, it probably wasn’t before noon.

Goten shoved his hands in the pocket of his cardigan and watched Trunks go from cat to cat.  He had this rare, beautiful smile on his face as he held his finger out for various cats and kittens to press their noses against.  Mai, meanwhile, was examining the section dedicated to older cats.

Goten glanced at the cats as he walked by.  Most were sleeping but a few playful ones were up against the large, accommodating cages, rubbing their chins and foreheads against the criss-crossing metal.

He crouched down to look at a cage that had two little information cards on it near the bottom.  Inside were two black cats, wound around each other in sleep.  He flicked his eyes to the first card to see what their deal was.  There was fluff about them both being cuddly and good lap cats and how they were neutered and up to date on shots.  Reading on he saw the two cats were brothers and all that were left of a litter of eight.  The two of them refused to be apart and so the shelter urged that they be adopted together.

Brothers…

Of course his mind went to Gohan.  Gohan teaching him to swim, to ride a bike, helping him with his homework.  Gohan, his hero.  Gohan coming in the house, panting and scared and covered in blood.  He could remember it.  He had been arguing with his mom about what classes he was going to take for his last year of university when he burst in, shaking.  His father had come to him, and his mother--both of them so worried.  Asking if he was injured.  And then Gohan lifting his head and smiling a smile that seemed to stretch his face unnaturally before saying, “This isn’t my blood” and clamping his hand around his mother’s throat.

“Goten?”

He came back to himself to find that he had fallen backwards from his crouch and was flat on his ass on the floor of the shelter.  Trunks was crouched next to him, his face looking concerned.  And this wasn’t the dead Trunks, no.  He was in a new universe with a different Trunks.  His Trunks.  His boyfriend.

He took a gulp of air.

“They’re brothers,” he said. “The, uh, cats.  They’re brothers.”

Trunks stared at him, his blue eyes imploring, and he finally nodded.

“They are.  We should adopt them together.”

Goten wasn’t sure what passed between them but they had an idea.  Maybe it was fate that would lead them both to always have that connection regardless of what universe they originated from.  He pushed out a breath of hair, feeling open mouth curve up in a smile at he did.

“Yeah, we should.”

“Hey, check it out!” Mai called. “This cat reminds me of Yajirobe.”

Together they turned to see her standing near a cage pointing at an absolutely massive orange and black Maine Coon.

“I think we’re going to get these two over here,” Trunks said.

Mai looked at them and then back to the cat.

“Good plan,” she said finally. “I don’t think cat-jirobe likes me much anyway.”

Goten looked at Trunks and bit his lip.

“We don’t have to get two cats,” he said.

Trunks gave him a broad smile, closing his eyes as he did and tilting his head to the side.  Goten felt his heart skip just looking at it.

“It’s no problem.” He said once the smile faded and--Kami, no wonder he didn’t do it that often, that smile was nothing short of devastating--pointed at the tag. “See?  It says they don’t want to be separated.”

“I…”

Trunks drew close to him, his lips near his, and it was like they were the only two people in the room.

“You’ve done so much for us--for me.  Helping us adjust, get jobs...and for me, you’ve…” He could see a flush start to rise to his cheeks. “You’ve done a lot for me.  Let me do something for you.”

Goten wasn’t sure how to respond.  Back in his universe, he had dated people--guys and girls who were probably gone now, strange as it was to think about--but he hadn’t felt this before.  This depth of emotion.  This feeling drawing him to someone else.  He looked back at the cats.  One opened its eyes and looked at them both before opening its mouth in a massive yawn.

\--

There was something more complete with the cats in their house.  The apartment was slowly becoming more of a home than a place for them to stay, out of the way, in this new universe.

Goten flopped into bed.  His head still pounded from the music in the club where he tended bar.  Even earplugs couldn’t keep his sensitive ears from hearing the pounding bass deep in his skull.  Trunks had already been in bed when he got home but he wasn’t sleeping.  He wanted to help him in some way.  On nights they both had off, he had taken to making him tea but he always complained about the static in his head.  The feedback of every memory of his life playing back to him.

“How was work?” he asked, his normally rough voice at a whisper.

“Okay.”

It was always his answer because it was the only answer he had to give.  He put on a fake smile and half-heartedly flirted through his shift to get better tips.  He liked being here better or when he would go bug Trunks and Mai at the coffee shop.

“Don’t move your legs too much.”

“Why?”

As his boyfriend gave words of warning, Goten moved his legs only to feel tiny needles dig into his flesh.  He stuffed his knuckles in his mouth to block his scream.

“Noodles forgets what feet are when you put them under a blanket.”

He looked up to see the eyes of one of their new kittens glowing in the dark.

“I’ve already made that mistake,” Trunks said and let out a small chuckle.

Noodles made his way up the bed and laid himself between them.  Goten wasn’t sure  _ why _ they named the cat that but everyone seemed to agree on it.  The other cat Trunks had named Cronos and wouldn’t say why.

“Did you have your tea tonight?” he asked.  Idly, he reached out one hand to stroke the cat’s fur.

“I did.  But I always feel like I can actually sleep if you’re here.”

It was sappy but he appreciated it--the sap.  Trunks admitted that this was his first real relationship where he was honest with himself and the other person.  If he wanted to be corny, he wouldn’t tease him about it.

“Well, I’m back...what are you going to do with me now?”

In the dark, he could see just the edges of his teeth as he smiled.  Trunks leaned in to kiss him.  He lifted his hand to his hair because he knew Trunks loved when he ran his fingers through it, when he massaged his scalp as they kissed.  Goten moved to bring their bodies closer, but Noodles was having none of that.  He let out an irritated yowl and dashed off the bed but not before, in his hasty retreat, he dug his back claws thought the duvet and into Goten’s shoulder.

“Shit...I’ll have to apologize to him later,” he muttered.

“How much later?” Trunks asked.  He looped his arms around his neck and pressed their foreheads together.

“Much.”

He kissed him again.  There was still a while to go--for all of them.  He would have to let his fresh wounds at least scab over and then try to heal.  But here, in this bed, in this apartment, with his boyfriend, his friend, and their cats, he felt like that was possible.

**Author's Note:**

> http://vertigoats.tumblr.com


End file.
